Day 30

Do you think I should title the blog entries differently? I'm toying with it, although I like knowing the number of entries I have done. Just thinking out loud.

Just heard that Pete Rose Jr was just busted for selling steroids to minor league baseball players. He faces 20 years in prison. Made me start to think about fathers and sons. What must it be like to grow up the son of Pete Rose, one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Jr tried to be a pro baseball player and pretty much failed. He was a career minor league whom I believe never made it to the majors. Now he is potentially facing 20 years? Don't tell me that his father being a degenerate scumbag gambler didn't have anything to do with it.

Nobody was a bigger Pete Rose apologist than my father. Dad was Pete's biggest fan. He had more Pete Rose memorabilia than you can imagine. He loved the way Pete played, all out, balls to the wall, Charlie Hustle style. His favorite picture of Pete he had blown up and autographed (because Pete is the single biggest autograph whore of all time). It was Pete, standing at 3rd base, uniform full of dirt after a headfirst slide. He had two copies, one in the Dery hall of fame, the other in his office.

I'd say I was 7 or 8 years old at the time and Pete was going to start the season playing for Montreal, who's spring training facility was in West Palm Beach, Florida, where my grandparents spent their winters. Every spring break as kids, we would go spend a week visiting them and we always went to Spring Training games, both the Expos and the Braves who shared the complex. So that one year Pete was playing for the Expos, Dad somehow arranged a way for us to meet Pete before the game and get our picture taken with him. I remember I had never seen my Dad so excited and so nervous in my life. He was going to meet one of his heroes. So a few hours before the game, all four of us went down to the field for the meeting. I remember vividly how Pete acted so completely annoyed that he had to do this. My dad said to him how it was such an honor to meet him and how much he admired the way he played the game and Pete was like "great, can we take the picture and get this over with." My dad looked like a little kid who just found out that Santa Claus wasn't real. We took the picture and he left faster than we could say thank you to him. My mom has the picture at the house, but I don't have a copy to put on the blog. When I go home for Thanksgiving, I'll get it, scan it, and put it up for you to see.

What is my point with this story? Other than Pete Rose is a lying scumbag who couldn't even treat one of his best fans and his family well, nothing really. Its hard to come up with good material everyday for my faithful readers!

Song of the Day: "A Children's Story" by Slick Rick